Tagcoin - Cryptocurrency for Rewards

I've been involved with cryptocurrency since 2012, when I met a Korean guy who wanted to sell me some Bitcoin for Pesos. He was buying clothing and goods from Korea using Bitcoin to pay for them, selling them for Pesos here and then buying more Bitcoin to send back to Korea, but for some reason he had an excess of Bitcoin and wanted to offload them. So I quickly researched for a few hours and he came to our office and we did a cash to bitcoin transaction. Over the next few months I bought a lot more.

Then I started to learn about alternative crypto currencies and finally decided to create one. As of that time (mid 2013), no company had created a crypto currency coin so what we did was fairly novel. My idea was to create something to experiment with and perhaps use with the Tagcash Payments & Rewards Platform. We named it "The world's first Rewards Cryptocurrency". It had no premine, and it was launched exactly at the time we told everybody it would - in fact all of that is on the thread at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=317408.0

After the launch, Tagcoin was traded on a now defunct site called Cryptsy in USA, and also on http://www.btc38.com/trade_en.html in China, where it is still traded. China loves to speculate and play with crypto.

Over the last 3 years, it has proven fairly stable - we modified the code to give 5% yearly interest for coins held in a wallet, as it is both a proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake (PoS) coin. Every 4 minutes it generates a block of transactions which are added to the blockchain, and gives a reward of about 26 coins...it started with 30 coins when launched, but every 3 months it reduces by 1%.

As of today Tagcoin trades at about 20 US cents (it has increase a lot in value over the last couple of months on btc38.com). We will also be adding a TAG Trader module in the Tagcash Wallet app to let users trade it via mobile device, especially in the Philippines.

Whilst we originally created it as a rewards coin, and we and other merchants use it for that purpose, we are now also using the Tagcoin blockchain technology to connect to small modules in the Tagcash Wallet Mobile App and other apps we create.

For example, anytime someone transfers Fiat money within the Tagcash Wallet app, from user to user or to merchant, then a corresponding equal value in Tagcoin is also transferred on the blockchain and shows up within a few minutes. Anyone can confirm that via the blockchain explorer.

This helps with regulations, as well as providing security within the platform. As other merchants use our closed loop currency options inside the wallet for their own purposes, those currencies can also be backed by the blockchain.

Tagcash is also creating other modules to use the TAG Blockchain. One is for Know your Customer (KYC Identification) - within Tagcash we perform KYC to make sure someone is who they say they are. Then that person can generate a public key on the blockchain signed by Tagcash (or any partner that also does KYC) that is valid for a short time and use that in other apps and systems to validate that they are who they say they are. This way, a person does not have to redo their KYC for every app and company that requires it and their documents are held in only one place, lessening the threat of identity theft. Ideally, all of that information could be stored on their local device so no one has it, but legally a company has to store the documents somewhere, be it on our system or their own.

Other modules we are creating include Asset Registration and Provenance tracking, Digital Notary, Giftcards, Charity, Peer to Peer Lending, Escrowed Delivery and Voting.

I have been asked "why not use Bitcoin", to do the same thing, or even Ethereum, but the cost of transfers of Bitcoin is quite high now (sometimes up to a $5) and makes no sense. To do a transfer in Tagcoin costs about 0.001 of a Tagcoin...so a fraction of a cent for each transaction. It will be along time before the value of Tagcoin is so high that we have to worry about it. If it gets too high then we will see about modifying the transaction fee on the blockchain if the general consensus allows.

So what turned out as an experiment is proving quite useful. I am sure we will be using Tagcoin for other purposes as we progress with Tagcash products and services and we will be helping other companies use it as well, either directly or via the Tagcash API.